Changing to an effective e-learning process.

To build an e-learning course, which is to be quite effective, one has to make sure that the method of changeover from traditional teaching to e-learning is managed in the best way possible. Therefore, one who is planning a course has to keep in mind that change management is an approach taken by the individuals involved during the transition from a current traditional course into a future e-learning course. Due to this the person creating the e-learning course has to think about the students who are going to be using this particular course.

Thus, one can say that the conversion management is the fundamental task. If this does not happen the course would be discarded because as Arthur Richardson said, “If poorly implemented e-learning can be seen as a punishment…” The idea behind all this is that if the students are introduced to a new course, they have to be trained for it in order to get used to it. However, if the course needs a lot of training while they still have to be doing the work for the traditional course they are doing right now, they would see the training as additional burden. Indeed, we can conclude that we cannot offer the content of a course, and expect the students to use it without having enough time to get used to it.

To avoid all problems, a person who is preparing an e-learning course has to make sure that six important steps are not overlooked. The six important steps are:

1. Time for implementation – this must never be miscalculated because one cannot expect to see instant results of a changeover because everyone needs time to understand what is new in order to get used to the new system.

2. Development – it is important to involve the students in the process of developing the e-learning course and thus the teachers preparing online courses must correspond with the students who are going to use the same courses. Since the students are the end users it is important to focus on them as the success and failure of the course, all depends on the students.

3. User Testing – the students are the best testers that one has while developing an e-learning course. This is the best method to test the course because this way, the teacher can notice what are the norms of the students and thus refine any development tips.

4. Build quality content – a teacher in a traditional classroom uses body gestures as well as the tone of voice, both of which produce a lot of information which would all be lost when using an e-learning course. Therefore, an online course must be developed in the most functional way where the content is more sophisticated than that used in a traditional class but which would still be understandable by the students.

5. Use technology – having a course offered online leads the producer of the same course to the use of different technology that can be integrated together and used in the most appropriate way. Since technology offers a lot of methods and ideas, one can borrow and combine a lot of factors together.

6. Clarify expectations – since there are a lot more elements in preparing an e-learning course, they are all expected to interact with each other. Due to this, access to different types of data might be needed and thus the students need to acquaint themselves with what can be found and what can be accessed. Consequently tailored material might be wanted so that the students can understand and be trained well. Thus the teacher has to understand what is expected by the students.

Resource:
Douglas J.V. (2002). Six steps to effective e-learning. Retrieved from: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/systems-management/2002/05/09/six-steps-to-effective-e-learning-2109917/

eLearning Ethical Issues and the Students

As we all know and experience, the invention of the Internet opened doors to all the information we could possibly want to search and find. In fact the Internet is thought of as a very powerful resource, especially for education, where both educators and students can search for any information they might need to enhance the learning process. So much so that education has now also been extended to an online platform resulting inseveral elearning components. However, one cannot ignore the numerous ethical problems arising from the number of readily available information which can be accessed and in some cases copied and presented without any acknowledgements. It is not the first them that, as my friends pointed out, students simple copy and paste information from the Internet without stopping to think about the ethical implications of their actions, and not even noticing the infringement of the copyrights of the material being reused without the author’s approval. With the implementation of elearning system, the risks of infringement of copyright increase as “It is easier to cheat online than Face-toFace (F2F).”

However identifying the increase of the “traditional problems of cheating, plagiarism, and violation of privacy, vandalism, theft, and spying into the cyberspace” with elearning systems, is not enough. As educators implementing the online environment we have to be aware that the we can limit such unethical acts by carefully configuring and managing the courseware for eLearning through the design of the assigned tasks and the implementation of checks to balance and minimize the unethical practices. The tools and services provided within a Course Management Systems (CMS) or Learning Management Systems (LMS) can help in”preventing the issue of cheating, plagiarism and copyright violations.” Such tools can be used in the (a) Structuring of Assignments and Evaluation Techniques and the (b) inclusion of peer assessment, which if configured and implemented well , will hinder the unethical usage of the online available content. Here are some tips I found in a journal article I read.

When structuring the assignments and also the techniques for evaluation it is ideal to use multiple methods of measuring performance, mastery and skills. The assignments could range from asking students to create or design a web site which could be considered as a component of eEducation, to creating online portfolios which contain a range of material samples, creating and publishing resources by using available web site tools such as online powerpoint presentations, hands on lab approaches, creating themed Games and Puzzles. The idea is to ask for student creativity and opinions where the Internet is not used as the provider of the information readily to be presented, but rather the internet is what they actually use to produce their own work, which can be stimulated by some concepts found through the Internet. For example providing students with case studies which they need to analise and post comments and thoughts about the case studies and their opinions backed with some theories which can be found through the Internet. This brings us to the suggestion of including peer work and peer assessment on an online learning environment by using forums or Instant Messaging tools so that students have a chance to express their personal ideas and introduce themselves to the class. It is also suggested that having peer reviewed systems will control the amount of unethical use of the material available on the internet.

This suggestions all ask for the student to think creatively and create something “new” rather than reproducing what is already available and thus reduces the needs of students simply copying and pasting information to respect the copyright and IP available on the internet.

As mentioned by my friends some students still do not understand the true meaning of copyright and the implications which comes with every Intellectual Property available on the Net, and thus simply break the rules without considering their actions. To prevent such behaviour from happening it is a good practice to put in act some prevention strategies such as :

o Presenting, discussing and reviewing policies related to academic integrity, plagiarism and cheating with the students and dedicate time to them as part of the educational syllabus.

o Explaining the different levels of using someone else’s work, but that at the end it’s still cheating. This can be much easier explain on an eLearning online environment where students can put their work online and then without asking for permission the teacher uses their work as hers and see what reactions the students will have. Using the reactions, the teacher can explain the unethical actions of using something without any permission

o Discussing the consequences of plagiarizing by presenting plagiarism and violation of copyright and privacy cases and discussing them.

o Not just scare the students but also teachings students how to cite and quote the material used using the appropriate formats and layouts. Could also teach them how to ask permission to quote and use copyrighted materials.

o Guide students with what resources they could/should use by providing a list of websites or books, or maybe even specifying the number of references which can be done from different sources available.

Most importantly it is important that we practice what we preach as students will start adopting the same methods for example we as educators have to make sure that all the information available on an eLearning platform conforms to all the fair use guidelines and have the appropriate citations and attributions given to the author/s of the information.

I found a site which explains 10 big myths about copyright laws and related topics. I found it useful to learn from it myself and also could be used to explain the concepts to the students. Here’s the link to the site:

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Another interesting site I found which I think can be very useful is a copyright tutorial which guides the user to understanding the concept of copyright. I think it’s of utter importance that as educators who will soon be using an online learning environment, that we know well the concepts and implications of copyright to avoid breaking any ethical rules.

http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/copyright/high-home.html

Nagi, K. ( August, 2006). Solving Ethical Issues in eLearning. Special Issue of the International Journal of the Computer, the Internet and Management , Vol. 14 No.SP1.

E-learning and Change Management

“E-learning and Change Management – The Challenge” journal by Lesley Mackenzie-Robb helped me to better understand and recognize the difference and linkage between e-learning and change management. 

Implementing an e-learning system in schools can be seen as a challenge in various aspects.  Such new system brings a lot of change; therefore change management should be taken into consideration before actually implementing the whole system.  The stakeholders’ involvement is an extremely important element in such change over.  Various documents and people talk about e-learning in schools; discussing what it entails and its benefits but little has been said about the changes that it will bring along in this academic environment.  E-learning and change management are connected together even though many people just ignore the change management phase and start off implementing the e-learning system immediately.

Ideally change management should be taken seriously into consideration before bringing out e-learning in schools.  E-learning brings change to all school stakeholders including students, teachers, parents and school administration.  If this new technological system is drastically introduced without any phase-change over implementation, stakeholders may react negatively, therefore adopting a negative attitude towards e-learning. 

For positive attitude and successful implementation in the school, various measurements should be adequately followed.  In my opinion to minimize problems, before actually follow up any change management scheme; stakeholders should comprehend what e-learning is through talks and seminars if necessary to avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretations.  If the schools cater effectively for change, e-learning will succeed in schools.  Schools should follow up change management schemes and models guided by professional people.  A very commonly used model is the ADKAR. 

This change model compromises five main phases: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.  The first phase entails stimulating consciousness of what e-learning involves and why it is recommended to all stakeholders.  As its name implies, the Desire phase involves instilling desire to stakeholders to involve themselves in such change.  In the Knowledge stage, all required knowledge is used to establish how the change will occur.  Then during the Ability phase, the actual implementation of the change is needed.  The last stage, the Reinforcement consists of constant reviewing of the implemented e-learning system and support for all stakeholders.

The Semantic Web, E-learning and the Classroom

It is very interesting to note that Berners-Lee was concerned that the new success of the Web may lead to a fierce competition. He feared of a situation whereby different proprietors will restrict Web information with the intention to destroy what is known as the open source nature of the Web.

Whilst conducting a research particular on this subject, I further found out that Berners-Lee decided to create a conference with the intention to tell people of a consortium adhering to a number of agreements whereby all opposing parties exposing information on the Web should work together as a teamwork. Such consortium was fundamental so as to be able 'to lead the Web to its full potential...' as stated by Berners-Lee own words. This is done by establishing common guidelines and protocols in order to achieve interoperability of the learning objects on the Web. For instance the W3C is a membership of such consortium which has open technical specification where anyone can make use of them or provide further recommendations.

This makes me think of e-learning in relation to the semantic web. E-learning is not simply concerned with the availability of resources anytime. On the other hand, e-learning involves supporting features that allow for personalization of learning resources and communication which can be both synchronous and asynchronous. It is also capable to support collaborative features. I am inclined to believe that indeed e-learning can be seen as a supplement to traditional teaching. In fact, this gives way to the benefits of personalized learning.

Having said this, thus, the web is all about learning which is shared, consensual and which is split and categorized into different domain specific assets whereby domains are needed in order to filter the information in the right manner.

Before ending this blog, I would like to share a particular quote by Jon Stewart which captured my attention:

“The internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.”

Could this quote be relevant to introduce the idea of incorporating e-learning within a classroom? One wonders…

References:

Internet Pioneers: Tim Berners-Lee. Accessed from http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/index.html

Sicilia, M., & Garcia, E. On the Convergence of Formal Ontologies and standardized e-Learning.

How can we implement change?

“Change is difficult but often essential to survive” Les Brown.

Very often we find it very hard to adapt to a change and keep on resisting till we are restricted by force to implement such transformation in our lives. Some people prefer their lifestyle to follow a particular routine. These same people experience confusion and turmoil when faced with a change. Little do they notice that a change can bring about positive outcomes. Saying this, I am inclined to believe that a change has to be implemented well and with caution especially when the change involves transforming people’s mentality. There has to be a specific phase whereby all the necessary analysis of the current situation is carried out and discussions are conducted with each stakeholder affected with the change. Indeed the keyword of change management is stakeholders. In order for a change to be successful, one has to refer to the people‘s attitudes and make sure that every transformation is implemented positively.

Having said this, in order for the phenomenon of e-learning to be implemented in all Maltese schools, a change management has to take place. Some may think that this simply involves transforming face-to-face lecture style lessons into digital content. In some cases, teachers are also literally forced to put their material online without being re-assuring of the enforcement of the copyright laws. However, e-learning involves more than this. Educators should be encouraged to trust and share their resources with others and not limit them to their own use only.

In a particular journal of Stoltenkamp & Kasuto, which I read in relation to change management, a Learning Awareness Campaign was initiated as part of the change management. What interests me is the idea of having a committee made up from a number of different stakeholders who discuss with each other every issue concerning the transition from traditional teaching to e-learning. I am also in favour of providing a training phase for all of the stakeholders who make a fundamental part of the change management. It is to the interest of each person involved in the educational system to experience the e-learning system as a progressive tool for teaching and learning in an interactive and interesting way as possible. Motivation is the key principle of everything in the educational system. In this case, however, it is not only the students who have to be motivated in order to engage themselves in such a new e-learning based system but also the educators themselves!!

References:

Stoltenkamp, J., & Kasuto, O. A. J. E-learning change management and communication strategies within a HEI in a developing country: Institutional organization cultural change. Research, Reflections and Innovations in Integrating ICT in Education.

Systemic Change Management in Education

Before we adapt e-learning in our education system, one must analyze the systemic change process of the transition from the traditional face-to-face teaching to interactive learner-based e-learning.

In order to develop supportive education systems, all stakeholders must feel that they have some sort of ownership of the shared new education system, so that everyone feels part of this new vision. In order to do this, everyone must achieve this vision and be able to initiate the change the members’ desire. Decisions about the changing beliefs and values about schools and the new system are now to be taking as a group in a wider interconnected global society. Systemic change considers the impact of change on the whole system of both the personal psychological learning (inner) and the social psychological learning (outer). Thus reconnecting the stakeholders and the educational systems involved, system design becomes creative and generative learning process for everyone involved in the process.

In 1977, Ross (as cited in Menchaca, Bischoff, & Dara-Abrams, n.d.) demonstrated a structure for models with inputs going into the central activity box, constraints coming down into the central activity box, and the output coming out of the central activity box. The central activity is the e-learning event, while taking as input the stakeholders as change agents of the e-learning process i.e. administrative management, strategic plans, technology, organizational infrastructure, professional development. In the systemic change in schools; students and staff will also be included as inputs.

The constraints that may limit the process are economic issues, leadership of the system, monitoring of the system etc. Finally, this whole part will form the outputs such as successful students, collaborative work between staff and students etc. This whole process is cyclic i.e. the outputs will be the inputs for the next e-learning cycle.

References:
Menchaca, M., Bischoff, M., & Dara Abrams, B. (n.d.). A Model for Systemic Change Management in Education. Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 2(1), 1-6.

Being alert of copyright issues in an on-line environment

E-learning is nowadays found in various areas of education, where learning materials can be put online so staff and students can have some online learning environment experience. Teachers use library resources that they find useful for teaching in an online environment. Teachers are not doing anything more than they would in the traditional form of teaching where they hand students lesson notes and activity sheets, but this time they are doing so in an ‘innovative learning environment’. The difference is that they are having a ‘content repository on-line’ where they upload presentations, video files, music files, readings etc. into a VLE; thus lacking the interactive environment element where students contribute also to such content and not just access this content.

Unfortunately, teachers may not be aware of the licensing that school libraries have for e-journals and e-books and they would upload full text materials that are copyrighted. They apt to upload and give direct links of many on-line subscribed resource to students to enhance the learning material, without realizing that these lead to copyright issues. They might argue that by giving students the chance to download material, scanned copies from copies from books; they are aiding students in their studies. But this would infringe others’ copyright.

It is likely to be much more difficult for students to understand that some resources cannot be made available to them freely just so easy. Thus, I think that teachers must inform and make students aware of such copyright issues, not just in the traditional mode of teaching or in an on-line environment as discussed above; but also in everyday life where lots of them download gigs of movies and mp3s. We must alert them!!

References:
Secker, J. (2010). E-learning and copyright: background. In Copyright and E-learning- A guide for practitioners (Chapter 1). Retrieved from http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/downloads/file/secker1.pdf

Educational Semantic Web and Ontologies for E-learning

The semantic web intends to facilitate web-based content to be understandable and reusable by human and machines. Ontologies is a major component of the semantic web where categorization of a shared conceptualization of a specific domain is represented. Formal taxonomies and rules are likely to play a major role in enabling the shared and re-usable learning content. It is predicted that the Semantic Web and ontologies will have a big influence on the next phases of e-learning!

Devedzic (as cited in Laytras, Wagner & Diaz, 2004), claims that the key advantages of integrating Web Intelligence in Artificial Intelligence in Education are improved adaptation, better learning reassurance by providing the learner the most up-to-date web content, and course sequencing.

Aroyo and Dicheva in their paper “The New Challenges for E-learning: The Educational Semantic Web” (as cited in Laytras, Wagner & Diaz, 2004)suggest a framework for Educational Semantic Web – a modular semantic-driven and service-based interoperability framework plus ontology driven tools. All this for a user friendly, ordered, and automated authoring web-based educational systems. Indeed, to offer a balance between making use of explicit semantic information and exchanging educational information and also to keep up the information semantics.

Henze, Dolog & Nejdl in the paper “Reasoning and Ontologies for Personalized E-Learning in the Semantic web” (as cited in Laytras, Wagner & Diaz, 2004), also suggest a framework for personalized learning content and show how the semantic web can facilitate automatic generation of hypermedia structures.
As you can see various researchers have showed that the semantic web and ontology-based tools can facilitate education for our students; catering for all the abilities we find in today’s classrooms, since everyone have make use of the personalized learning content on the web.

References:
Sampson, D. G., Lytras, M. D., Wagner, G., & Diaz, P. (2004). Ontologies and the Semantic Web for E-learning. Educational Technology & Society, 7(4), 26-28. Retrieved January 12, 2011 from http://alexandria.tue.nl/openaccess/Metis172208.pdf

What is the idea of the Semantic web?

 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW).  Consecutively in 1994, he created the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  Later on, Berners Lee also took part in the invention of the famous Semantic Web.  WWW provides information that can only be understood by human beings while being meaningless to machines.  In contrast, the Semantic web consists of languages that are used to provide information that is machine readable, therefore provides information that the machine understands. 

The main purpose of Semantic Web is to supply ‘machine-understandable information’ [1]. The semantic web embraces computer machines rather than users (human beings) only.   WWW is used by human beings to manipulate information through searching and retrieving; users easily understand web pages since it uses people’s language.  In addition, the semantic web also provides web pages that are easily comprehended by computer machines.  Therefore computer machines would also be able to search and retrieve information as human beings do.  The fact that the information on the web is also understood by machines implies that machines can do more work for the users.  According to Sampson, D. G., Lytras, M. D., Wagner, G., & Diaz, P. (2004), “The Semantic Web is the emerging landscape of new web technologies aiming at web-based information and services that would be understandable and reusable by both humans and machines.” (Sampson et al, 2004, p26). 

Reference:

 [1] http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html

[2] http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2007/Semantic_Web.asp

[3] Sampson, D. G., Lytras, M. D., Wagner, G., & Diaz, P. (2004). Ontologies and the Semantic Web for E-learning. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (4), 26-28.

Copyright in Malta

The mentality of nowadays youngsters is to simply use the web and copy any information which is appealing enough to them. The degree of reliability and the quality of the concerned information are put aside. Moreover, the issue of copyright is ignored and not addressed adequately. I recall my own schooling days where no one made me aware of the importance to credit other author's work. Little did I know that when I made use of an image without the author's acknowledgment, I was infringing the copyright law.

I noticed that there is a certain trend in youngsters to download and copy music, software or games without paying. This is also a type of illegal activity. Unfortunately, this issue in Malta is not being taken seriously to the extend that youngsters have now adopted the idea of making use of any information found on the web without asking for permission to the rightful owner. It is very interesting to mention that in Germany, anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years. The copyright issue seems to be an ongoing battle for Google in Germany. Germans have a number of cases suing Google for not preventing illegal content from being uploaded to certain sites like You Tube.

In contrast to this, the Prime Minister David Cameron is of the opinion that copyright laws should be adjusted so as to cater for the new era of the internet. Cameron states that the United States make use of a ‘fair use’ which "…some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services”. Thus the UK prime minister decided to keep the costs of obtaining permission from rights holders to a minimum.

Back to Malta and the current situation in schools, I think that more awareness is needed on this issue of copyright infringes. It would be ideal to maybe organize a seminar where the students are given the chance to discuss copyright in general and how does it effect e-learning. We should make sure that students are aware that it is the expression on one's idea which is copyrighted and not the idea in itself. It could also be interesting if during such seminar, students will have the chance to make use of a Web 3.0 personalized learning environment. One can then explain to them that in order to achieve such PLE, resources have to be shared. Sharing an educational resource is not copying, on the other hand if one respects the author and make good use of the resource, then the benefits of PLE are being achieved.

I personally believe that this issue is still not being emphasized enough in Malta especially in the primary and secondary schooling years. I agree a lot with one of my colleagues Sarah in her blog “E-learning vs. Copyright and IPR ” that indeed it is up to us as future teachers to make sure that we start making our students aware of this issue as from a tender age.

References:

Lawton, C. (2010, September 7). German court rules against Google in copyright case. The Wall Street Journal, Technology news and insights. Accessed from http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/07/german-court-rules-against-google-in-copyright-case/

Boyes, R. (2006, March 24). Two years in prison for downloading latest film. The Times. Accessed from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article694986.ece

BBC News. (2010, November 4). UK copyright laws to be reviewed, announces Cameron. Accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11695416

Assistive Technologies and Adaptive Strategies

I have come across a very interesting paper regarding how people with disabilities use the web - http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/PWD-Use-Web/.  It tackles important issues such as different types of disabilities, assistive technologies and adaptive strategies and illustrates various scenarios of impaired users utilizing the web.  People with disability have the same right to access the Web as people with no disability do.  In order to facilitate these people’s lives, WAI provides standards and guidelines for easier web access.  Moreover, people with disability to simply access the web, need various types of assistive technologies and adaptive strategies. 

One may assume that only special software is required for people with disability to use the computer and the web, but special and adequate devices are essential!  Assistive technologies and adaptive strategies are needed to help the user with a particular impairment to use the computer and the web easily without any difficulty.  People who can not use the ordinary keyboard due to physical impairment requires special keyboards such as on-screen and eye-gaze keyboards.  Speech recognition would also be necessary for people with physical disability.  Blind people require Braille devices such as Braille keyboard and monitors.  Furthermore screen readers would also facilitate his/her computer/web access.  On the other hand, people with vision impairment would need screen magnifiers for better viewing.  A variety of both adaptive software and hardware is available nowadays catering for the needs of people with disability.  Furthermore there are also alternative browsers such as text and voice browsers since some users would not be able to use the GUI browsers.

In my opinion, it is really fascinating how things have evolved throughout the years and how much improvement has been done so far to include all people with different kind of disabilities, thus being inclusive!  

IPRs and Copyright in E-Learning

Not long ago, IPRs of e-learning were considered ambiguous due to the “lack of knowledge and expertise about IPRs and how to manage them” (Casey. J, 2004, p3).  Consciousness related to IPRs has increased due to their vital role in all sectors.  Nowadays, there is such urged for the protection of the contents of e-learning and for the further improvement in the e-learning system itself.  Content created in e-learning involves a lot of work and effort by developers thus its’ respective IPR must be appreciated by others.  Developers of these e-learning resources should clearly establish who can access and utilize them through their particular IPR information. 

I came across a very good definition of IPR. which is “the legal protection available in relation to certain property that is intangible which can be created by individuals.” (Casey. J, 2004, p4)  IPR is directed by other laws and rights such as Copyright which involves “the right to grant or withhold the right to others to make copies of the work.” (Casey. J, 2004, p6).  There are various interesting copyright features which one would not consider such as that:

·        Copyright protects the originality and skill of the particular work. 

·        Once the intellectual content is produced, the developer can instantly apply the copyright law on his/her work. 

·        If the intellectual work is produced by more than one individual, each of them would be the author. 

However, ideas and concepts are not protected by copyright law; they can be utilized without the permission of the inventor.  Regarding employment and work of place, if the intellectual work is created on the work premises and during work time, the employer owns that particular work.

Some teachers and educators create various resources and intellectual work such as notes, Power Point presentations which they do not share with nobody else!  Incorporating these resources in an online learning environment such as e-learning, “these resources are already subject to IPR law, but storing and sharing them in this new and very public manner makes it important to ensure that these resources comply with IPR law and can be protected by it.” (Casey. J, 2004, p4)

Because of IPR, teachers may be more motivated to share their resources if they know that their resources will be protected with IPR law and will not be re-produced but only re-used with permission.

Reference:

Casey. J (2004). Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Networked e-Learning. A Beginners Guide for Content Developers.  JISClegal information. Retrieved 6-1-11 from http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/Portals/12/Documents/PDFs/johncasey.pdf

Semantic Web and E-Learning

Upon discussing the possibilities of the semantic web I was intrigued on finding out more what the possibilities would be if the semantic web would be incorporated into an online learning scenario. I wished to find the effects semantic web might have, will it improve the learning experience? Or distract the learning experience? Or maybe just not have any particular major impact on the learning environment?

I tried reading and comparing some journals and online articles I found to find out more on this issue. Here are some interesting points I read about.

Roger Schank, one of the main helpers who founded the Learning Center at Carnegie Mellon University, came up with a new methodology design which eliminates the need of classes, lectures, tests and even programs. This involves the creation of a story in which the student has to live for a specific period, namely the Story-Centered Curriculum(SCC). The reasoning behind this curriculum is that students learn new skills effectively when the students is faced with different kinds of situations, where one has to decide what he/she needs to know and to do and also when helping others with a difficulty. Schank uses the ideology that “Effective learners come to understand when, why, and how they should use skills and knowledge” and this can be achieved as students are presented with “key just-in-time lessons” when faced with a situation and what is being learn has a high impact on the student making it probably easier and more likely to remember the information when needed. This concept enhance the teaching experience just like the Semantic Web has the potential to give a new dimension to the online learning experience as it provides the user personalised content. Having said this, the content will be of use and of higher quality to the online learner and thus can lead to the increase of development of skills and knowledge. “The potential of the Semantic Web could actually revolutionize the learning experience.”

The Semantic Web can thus be useful because at the end of it all, e-learning is not only about providing students with access to learning resources “ anytime, anywhere, via a repository of learning resources, but is also concerned with supporting such features as the personal definition of learning goals, and the synchronous and asynchronous communication, and collaboration, between learners and between learners and instructors” this can be highlight achieved through the system of Semantic Web and the ontology it uses. With the shift in the education paradigm, students are no longer “passive vessels ready to be filled with knowledge” but are active agents in the construction of their own knowledge and this can be enhance by not only limiting the experience to an environment of communication and sharing of content but to actual challenge the learner to adapt and find knowledge and one such manner is by providing and adequate e-learning environment which is enhanced by the Semantic Web’s power. “As e-Learning stretches across many subject areas, there is

a need to resolve semantic spaces between pedagogical and psychological learning theories, models, and

principles to make them identifiable for computer-based systems, whilst constructing teaching models where the educator, the system, and the learner evolve together. “

Vladan Devedzic who surveys important aspects of Web Intelligence (WI) in the context of AIED research discusses how WI broadens the learning experience as it can keep the content in the course up to date with the most recent content from the web whilst presenting it the material according to the learner model. “Automatic discovery, invocation, and composition of educational Web services can free the learner from many time-consuming activities that often disrupt the learning process itself.”

It is the new-generation Web that makes possible to express information in a precise, machine-interpretable form, ready for software agents to process, share, and reuse it, as well as to understand what the terms describing the data mean. It enables Web-based applications to interoperate both on the syntactic and semantic level (Hendler, 2001).

Apart from focusing on just the learning experience, semantic concepts can also be applied to learn administrations which could be beneficial to both the learner and the institution. This could be done by keeping the student and teacher management system’s information up to date with other administration systems for example updating the data about student attendance when a student makes an appointment at the medical center, without requiring and direct communication from the student. It’s not limited to just attendance but also to medical information about a student or about the staff or maybe the student’s classroom management ad behaviour which can be viewed by the student’s parents.

The major obstacle which is of utmost importance is the insurance of data security with the implementation and running of such systems. It must be ensured that elaborated methods of encryptions are employed to safeguard the intelligent systems to distinguish between the secure data and fake data and also verify the provider and rightful owner of the data. In fact “Lawmakers and government agencies have an influential part to play in promoting security.” Thus educaational organizations should ideally keep data secure while addressing issues around open access.

No wonder that it is anticipated that Ontologies and Semantic Web technologies will influence the next generation of elearning systems and applications.

References :

Moreale, E., & Vargas-Vera, M. (2004). Semantic Services in e-Learning: an Argumentation Case Study. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (4), 112-128.

Devedžić, V. (2004). Web Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence in Education. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (4), 29-39

Daly, C. (2009, April 9). The Semantic Web and E-learning . Retrieved December 2010, from eLearn Magazine: http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=77-1

Hend S. Al-Khalifa, H. C. (n.d.). The Evolution of Metadata from Standards to Semantics .

Lora Aroyo, D. D. (n.d.). The New Challenges for E-learning: The Educational Semantic Web.

Plagiarism V.S. Copyright violation

It is obvious that taking someone else’s work and saying that it is yours is not correct. Plagiarism and copyright violation both deal with this issue. Although some of us might think that these two offences are the same, in fact they are not. However, since most of the people think that these two offences are both on the same wavelength, some might still fall for the threat of plagiarism.

Therefore, one has to keep in mind that plagiarism takes place when a person uses someone else’s ideas, or words without referencing or giving any credit to that person. This also takes place if the work used is paraphrased or summarized without any acknowledgement.

On the other hand, copyright violation refers to more than just referencing someone else’s work. In fact it is about using someone else’s original work, being it of any type of material, without any consent or reimbursement.

In fact, copyright violation is a more serious offense as it is also put into effect by the courts, while plagiarism is more insisted on by schools and universities. Apart from that, even if the user acknowledges the original creator of a particular piece of work, it is still illegal to take large parts of it. Alternatively, copying small parts of someone’s original work does not mean violating copyright laws as long as you acknowledge the author or creator.

Therefore, one has to pay attention when using these two terms in order not to use them interchangeably. Also it is better to keep in mind that when using information for assignments, dissertations or even for e-learning material, instead of paraphrasing one would better use quotes, footnotes, references as well as keeping quotations short enough in order not to violate copyright.

References:

1:Plagiarism and Copyright violation: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/p04.htm

2: Copyright and Plagiarism: http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/plagiarism.htm

3: Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement: Is Copying Illegal?: http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/plagiarism-vs-copyright.php

Sharing of resources among teachers

Sharing of resources is in my opinion one of the main aspect in e-learning. Sarah in her blog “E-learning vs. Copyright and IPR” commented about the issue of teachers sharing their resources and whether teachers will be willing to share resources. In a particular website by Greg Webb (http://ps.pageseeder.com/ps/jg/papers/teachers/teachers.pshtml) elicited some points on why teachers are unwilling to share their resources in which I wish to elaborate in this post.

Among the points that he mentioned I agreed perfectly with the point where he said “fear of being judged by peers”. I think that this is crucial because teachers are not used to be assessed especially seniors one. Thus when they are asked to share their resources they tend to be afraid that they are not of a high quality and thus the other teachers will gossip about their resources. Also they might be afraid that there will be some information which is not updated and thus this will show that they are not doing their work good enough. I heard a situation where teachers were not willing to allow students’ teachers observing them in classes because they were afraid that they will tell something to the assistant head or the head.

On the other hand those teachers who work really hard to produce new resources may also not be willing to share them because of loss of intellectual property. Abuses happens all the time and some teachers may take the resources of other teachers, remove their names and add their names. Also the issue of power where sharing of resources as Webb describes 'empowers' non-experts.

I think that in order to move to e-learning and sharing of resources, one has to encourage team work between teachers and even start doing this from university where we will be brought up with the mentality of contributing and sharing our resources and not constantly competition with each other.

There also should be a system which will be monitored and where teachers can use other teachers’ resources depending on how much (and also the quality) they contributed on sharing their resources. In this way the problem of abusing from this sharing will be minimised.

Webb., G (2000). Why Teachers Don't Share Resources, And What We Can Do About It retrieved from http://ps.pageseeder.com/ps/jg/papers/teachers/teachers.pshtml on 8th January, 2011

E-learning vs. Copyright and IPR

From my own experience, during my secondary years at school, importance to copyright was never given. In the sense that we have never been told to credit people’s work: if used in our projects, homework and other work. This led me to finding it difficult to credit others’ work later in my life especially when I started this course at the University. Only our Sociology teacher (at Junior college) gave importance to this copyright issue.

This made me aware how important it is for students to know and appreciate others work. In fact, during my teaching practice, whenever I asked the students to find some information, I made it clear that they should reference the book/ site used. I must say that not all of did this since they are not used in doing so (it is like a ripple effect. The problem still lies in the educators).

Students just copy and paste the information they think is right. Sometimes they do not even read the text they choose. I think, the first thing we should do is teach the students how and most of all why is this important. A real example can be shown by using the students’ own work and introduce the importance of copyright from there.

If an e-Learning system was to be introduced in today’s schools, I think that a lot of problems would arise in respect to this issue. First of all, students will view this as an open source sharing information without understanding the idea behind it. Moreover, what will be available depends on what the teachers are willing to share, what can be digitized and also what can be shared without the violation of copyright (however, let’s take into consideration the cc)

I found the following quote which I think it describes today’s situations about e-learning:

‘Almost 99.99% of the courses have only course outlines and syllabus. It is like browsing through a CD category, knowing what songs are available yet unable to hear them.’

This can be a result due to teachers not willing to share their content with other teachers. For example during the SDP meeting held at the school I was at (in my teaching practice), the principal commented on the idea of sharing. He also wanted the teachers to visit other schools (of the same college) and mingle with other teachers by sharing ideas.

The following objective policies were found from The University of the Arts London Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Policy and Guidelines. The objectives of these guidelines state the following:
• A culture of students and teachers working together is supported.
• New skills and knowledge would be shared.

I think that rather than guidelines (although they should be taken into consideration), first, it is more important for educators to become aware of the benefits of when information is shared and then abide by the guidelines and policies .

References:
1. Google book: Globalized E-Learning Cultural Challenges. (2007). By Andrea Edmundson
2. http://intranet.arts.ac.uk/intellectual-property/